For Germans anticipating an iPhone, the handset is on its way.
A Reuters story has a spokeswoman with the Karstadt retail stores stating that the chain will be selling the iPhone. The spokeswoman added that the iPhone should be in stock in time for the Christmas shopping season.
It was not specified whether the units would be sold with or without a contract.
Apple has yet to outline details as to how it plans to sell the iPhone in Europe and has only mentioned that the units will be available come late 2007. The company declined to comment on specific plans with Karstadt as well as which European cell phone provider(s) will be contracted with.
If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas on this, let us know in the forums.

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A group of researchers working for Independent Security Evaluators have stated they’ve discovered a way to take control of Apple’s newly-released iPhone by way of a WiFi connection or tricking users into visiting a web site containing malicious code.
The hack also purportedly allows access to the personal information stored on the handset.
‚ÄúOnce you did manage to find a hole, you were in complete control,‚Äù said Charles A. Miller, principal security analyst for the Baltimore-based firm.
According to The New York Times, the company has alerted Apple to the vulnerability.
Miller demonstrated the hack by pointing his iPhone’s web browser to a specific web site. Once the site had loaded, the iPhone followed a set of instructions that transmitted a set of files over the web site. These files included recent text messages as well as contact information stored within the iPhone.
‚ÄúWe can get any file we want,‚Äù said Miller.
Miller also commented that this was representative of cell phones, which are now essentially full-grade computers, having computer-level problems. Though not the end of the world, users should be careful about accessing random public WiFi networks and which web sites they visit.
Per CNET’s Crave blog, a second exploit has also been found via this method:
“A second exploit developed by the researchers caused the iPhone to make a system sound and vibrate for a second after visiting a maliciously coded Web site. The same exploit could also dial a phone number, send a text message, or turn on the microphone to eavesdrop remotely on conversations within the room.”
Apple has yet to respond as to when a software patch or upgrade will be released to resolve the issue.

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On Monday, SoonR announcd that its remote file service was now functional with Apple’s iPhone.
SoonR’s software connects mobile phones with data stored on both Macs and PCs. According to Macworld News, users can share more than 40 document types via a slideshow-style interface. The service also integrates with Outlook e-mail, shared calendars and contact information.
For users looking to make Skype-based calls from their iPhone, SoonR can use a Mac or PC to bridge the call and enable this feature via the SoonR Talk program.
SoonR, like the iPhone, currently uses AJAX, which allows the software to scale fonts and pictures as needed. This comes in handy when rotating the iPhone from vertical to landscape mode as well as panning out and zooming in on an image through the iPhone’s pinch action.
SoonR currently offers basic accounts for free and plans to offer premium services in the future. The company’s software is currently still in the beta testing stage and can be downloaded from here.
If you’ve tried SoonR or have ideas or feedback, feel free to throw in your two cents in the forums.

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Following up on last week’s report that several of Apple’s recently-released iPhone handsets may have caused Duke University‘s wireless network to be overloaded with batches of wireless base stations becoming inaccessible. Network provider Cisco, which provides most of the university’s infrastructure, seems to be the culprit.
According to Macworld UK, Tracy Futhey, chief information officer for Duke University, stated that ‚ÄúEarlier reports that this was a problem with the iPhone in particular have proved to be inaccurate.‚Äù The statement illustrated that the iPhone is fully operable on the university’s wireless network and that Apple, Cisco and Duke were able to work together to identify the source of the problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue.
In a statement released to Macworld, the network provider cited that “Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke’s network and the problem has not occurred since.”
If you have any thoughts or feedback on this, let us know over in the forums.

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Classic Pogue and absolutely true. I was waiting for someone else to figure out AT&Ts hateful and Pythoneseque bill (couldn’t have said it better myself, David). David does just that, right after the jump…

I just got my first AT&T bill for my iPhone…
It‚Äôs a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion.
For starters, although I signed up for what iTunes told me was a $60 plan (450 minutes, unlimited Internet), the bill says I have a $40 voice plan and a $20 Internet plan, and lists them on separate pages.
The first bill, believe it or not, comes to $150. It‚Äôs filled with unexplained services and features that were never mentioned during the signup process, like MEDIA MAX, EXPD M2M, VOICE PRIVACY, and AT&T DIRECT BILL.

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On Friday, Cortado announced that the company has introduced its free mobile e-mail service to the iPhone.
According to MacNN, the package includes a personal e-mail address, professional spam filter, virus protection and 20 megabytes of storage space.
The program can be used in conjunction with and synchronize with iCal and Mac OS X’s Address Book program. Cortado’s service uses Microsoft Outlook Web Access and the company has spublished setup instructions to get the phone up and running through iTunes here.
If you have any thoughts or ideas on this, let us know in the forums.

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Late Thursday, Opera Software ASA released version 9.22 of its popular Opera web browser.
The new version, an 11.3 megabyte download, sports the following fixes and enhancements:
-Fix to allow toolbars to use bold fonts again.
-Tabs can be dragged between windows using the Windows panel again.
-Info panel title now correctly displays Web page title and mail subjects that contain HTML.
-Scripting and display fixes for the Silverlight plug-in.
-Multiple stability fixes.
-Improved stability and performance of BitTorrent.
-Fixed an issue that could occur when removing a specially prepared torrent transfer, as reported by iDefense.
-Prevented an issue where data URLs could be used to display the wrong address in the address bar.
-Improved the display of long domain names in authentication dialogs. Long domain names will now scroll instead of using ellipsis.
-Added Trustcenter class 3 G2 root certificate.
-Fixes for a problem with certificate import from PKCS #7 Signed and Netscape Multicert files.
Opera 9.22 requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later to run and is available for free.
If you’ve tried the new version and have either positive or negative feedback about it, let us know in the forums.

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It’s up to a fairly complex version number, but it tends to work well and has proven incredibly useful.Skype, the long-standing Voice over Internet Protocol client, has been updated to version 2.6.0.151. The new version, a 29.7 megabyte download, offers improvements in both audio quality and bandwidth management optimizations.
The program is available for free, though the service charges a given rate for computer-to-land-line and computer-to-cell-phone calls and international calling.
Keep in mind that the new version is still in its beta stages, so a little caution might be a good idea.
Skype requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later to run.
If you’ve tried the new version and had either a positive or negative experience with it, let us know in the forums.